Mike, a lot of heat coming off your posts lately. This and the frustration thread really seem to be part and parcel of the same issue. I see it as the sort of frustration that it seems to me many craftsman and artists go through when they consider the commercial drek that comes along while they are at the height of their career trying to practice what they believe is the higher form of craftsmanship and competence. That, along with seeing the crap that passes by because it exists in a commercial and speculative environment where sizzle is more important than substance.
We have revisited the "collection of holes" discussion many times. We all know that in comparison to the traditional or purist form of golf design, that long cart rides through subdivisions (even if populated with showpiece mansions) are a humbug.
Yet, even housing associated golf courses can have routings that can be done well or crappy. Three examples of good, bad, and ugly in my opinion are:
Good: Pine Needles, walkable, lovely journey or setting, housing is subtle, the flow of holes have good playing rhythm. Even, considering that the original routing was changed, it all still fits nicely.
Bad: most of those desert courses where they are still walkable, but have stark homes or patio home golf units on both sides of the hole corridor, and FWs way too close to OB that is on both sides. Wherever the homes cause OB within the core, sucks, IMHO.
Ugly: Where the cartball routing not only separates the holes by long drives, but the drives themselves are past backyard and sidelot easements between houses, down streets and so forth. I played one such Art Hills course in Charleston (Goosecreek I think was the name) that had about 3-4 fairly interesting holes, and cart rides through kids on streets skateboarding, hopscotching, basketballing in driveways, etc. It was literally depressing it had so little golf rhythm.
We checked out Lake Oconee Reynolds Plantation courses last fall. There is a mixed bag of good and not so good. The routing was through residential and scenic areas, mixed. It was cartball. It did fall into a category of "collection of holes" where most all of the holes were decent golf. But, it did not have the flow and rhythm that say Pine Needles does, because the cart rides were just a wee too long between greens to tees in some places and you loose your focus. But, it did not suck either. With the multiple courses, I found it confusing, and lacking in the "feel" that you were on a golf course. I felt you were being offered a sampler platter of pub and grub apetizers, not a full course meal. All that is due to disjunctive "routing" IMHO.
Personally, I think that the acceptance by the public to have golf interspersed with housing development and cartballing as a given, has created a different sort of golf. It mitigates against the concept of sport, and creates a category of "better homes and gardens tour golf" as a society page atmosphere. I doubt any of the golden era legends of the game and its course designs would even consider playing at places like Reynolds Plantation, even if there are good holes there because it isn't the game or sport of a defined rhythm anymore, it is just an amusing motorized social passtime.